REGILAUL in the POLITICAL WHIRLPOOL: on COLLECTING REGILAUL in NORTHEAST ESTONIA in the SECOND HALF of the 1950S

https://doi.org/10.7592/FEJF2017.67.saarlo

REGILAUL IN THE POLITICAL WHIRLPOOL: ON COLLECTING REGILAUL IN NORTHEAST ESTONIA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 1950s

Liina Saarlo

Abstract: The article is dedicated to the history of the monumental regilaul publication Vana Kannel and examines the changing position of regilaul in the research politics of Soviet Estonia in the 1950s. The changing form of fieldwork expeditions is dealt with, as the collection of regilaul was seen as a part of the preparation process of the publication. Concentrating on the series of fieldtrips to Alutaguse region in the second half of the 1950s, objectives and details of fieldwork are scrutinized to pinpoint the reasons for the failure of the endeavour. The fundamental question the article examines is the interaction between the dominating ideologies of research politics and the individual interests of folklore collectors. Keywords: academic source publication, fieldwork, regilaul, research politics, singer, Soviet studies

INTRODUCTION

Since the nineteenth century, collecting and publishing regilaul, the old Esto- nian oral song tradition, has been one of the pillars of Estonian national movement, and one of the main building blocks in the construction of ethnic identity. Jakob Hurt (1839–1907), the leading figure of Estonian national movement, initiator of nationwide folklore collecting in Estonia (see Jaago 2005), saw it as his mission to return to Estonians the collected folklore in the form of an academic publication series – Monumenta Estoniae antiquae. The first part of this series, Vana Kannel (‘The Old Psaltery’), is a series of published regilaul corpora of Estonian parishes. The regilaul corpus from Alutaguse region (Jõhvi and Iisaku parishes), in the core of northeast Estonian folk song tradition, was published in volume VIII of Vana Kannel (Kokamägi & Tedre & Tuvi 1999). The history of collecting folklore is unique in each parish, containing episodes of collectors’ fieldwork and collecting campaigns from different periods, and shaped by different ideologies and principles. Ülo Tedre, one of compilers of the eighth volume, wrote in the

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preface that the sequence of fieldtrips to northeast Estonia in the second half of the 1950s, organised and carried out by the Folklore Section at the Institute of Estonian Language and Literature,1 was motivated by the decision in 1955 to continue the publication of the Vana Kannel series. The purpose of the fieldwork was to record regilaul and gather information about former folk singers (Tedre 1999a: 6). This article focuses on a particular episode in the collecting history of Alu- taguse regilaul as well as on the several explicatory circumstances in the history of Estonian folklore studies and especially in the research of regilaul, which have come to light in the context of Ülo Tedre’s comments. The aim of the article is to elucidate how the temporal and spatial decisions, official purposes and personal agendas, and the used collecting methods affected the quality and quantity of documented folklore material and regilaul corpus of Alutaguse region in general.

RESEARCH POLITICS

The processes of sovietisation and the state of the intelligentsia in the first dec- ades of occupation in Soviet Estonia have been examined thoroughly by Estonian historians. The concept of sovietisation is used in post-sovietology to characterise the processes during which Estonian society was re-institutionalised, using the political models of the Soviet Union. Restructuration took place on economi- cal and social as well as cultural levels (Tannberg 2007; Mertelsmann 2012: 9–25), using strong ideological pressure (Sirk 2004: 67). On a larger scale, the discourse of post-colonialist – especially Soviet colonialism – studies, introduced to literary studies from social sciences, seems to suit well to characterise the processes in the academic structures of Soviet Estonia (Annus 2012: 34–35). Both discourses emphasise the complexity of the sovietisation/colonisation process and the importance of cultural restructuration. Inspired by both of these discourses, the fundamental question in this article is how different ideologies implicated folkloristic fieldwork in Estonia in the 1950s, especially the collection and representations of regilaul, a genre loaded with national ideologies throughout the century. Authors of both discourses emphasise the importance of individual adaption, resistance, or self-colonisation (Sirk 2004: 68; Annus 2011: 21–22). The article focuses on relational links of motivations and principles of collectors with official collecting policies, exam- ining which ones of their fieldwork practices and decisions were imposed by dominating ideologies, and which ones by individual preferences.

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With the beginning of the Soviet occupation in 1940,2 the system of academic institutions in Estonia underwent significant reorganisation. In the independent Republic of Estonia, there had been two institutions involved in research into folklore: the responsibility of the Estonian Folklore Archives (EFA)3 was the collecting and preservation of folklore, while the responsibility of the Chair of Estonian and Comparative Folklore4 at the University of Tartu (UT) was education in folklore studies. In Soviet Estonia, the EFA was incorporated into the State Literary Museum of the Estonian SSR5 (SLM), founded in 1940, and renamed the Department of Folkloristics (DF) in 1944. In the post-World War II period, new academic institutions, the ones that would conform to the structure of academic institutions in the Soviet Union, were established. In 1946, among other institutes founded under the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR, the Institute of Language and Literature (ILL) came into being, and became the centre of academic research related to Estonian language, literature, and folklore. Next year the Folklore Section (FS) of the Institute of Language and Literature started its activities6 under the lead of Eduard Laugaste (1909–1994).7 The Literary Museum remained a “conservation institution”, which managed the archives and had the function of working, as it were, “in the service of science”. Together with the Chair of Estonian Literature and Folklore (CELF)8 at the UT, there were altogether three institutions in Estonia that were involved in collecting and studying folklore to a greater or lesser degree. All three were involved in a determined and agreed-upon range of practices, in thematic as well as geographical terms.9 The late 1940s and early 1950s were convoluted and gloomy years in Estonian educational and cultural life. The post-war years for a breather came to an end in 1947, with the start of a witch hunt for the “traitors” in the Soviet repub- lics, which lasted until Stalin’s death.10 There were persecution and cleansing campaigns that aimed, in their rhetoric, to “liberate” universities, academic institutions, creative unions, etc. from “bourgeois nationalism”, “formalists”, “cosmopolitans”, etc. The pretexts were unspecific enough and thus could have applied to anybody.11 This state of fear and insecurity had an important role in discussing the direc- tions and tasks of academic research: these were not simple choices, guided by research trends but obligatory topics that a person had to pursue. Otherwise the least that could happen was a loss of salary level or even the academic position. In the early 1950s, folklore studies in Soviet Estonia ideologically focused on collecting contemporary, i.e. Soviet-period, folklore. The emphatic interest towards contemporary “Soviet” folklore served as if a means against the prec- edent folkloristics, during which the “tendentious” research focused on archaic folklore (i.e. classical genres of folklore such as regilaul, folk tale, legend, etc.)

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and ignored contemporary folklore on class struggle and the friendship of Es- tonians and Russians (Eesti kirjanduse ajalugu 1953: 8). The material catego- rised as Soviet folklore included various workers’ songs on political themes, World War II soldier songs, satire targeted at the “retrograde element”, etc.12 Thus attempts were made to collect workers’ lore in the mining and industrial regions of northeast Estonia,13 students visited collective farms to practise collecting folklore,14 etc. Still, these collecting activities cannot be considered a success, since very little of specific folklore was collected or “wrong” material was mistakenly recorded (Ahven 2007: 98–99; Oras 2008b: 62–63; Kulasalu 2014). After Stalin’s death in 1953, the forced interest in Soviet folklore dimin- ished and folklorists were able to return to collecting and studying classical folklore genres (e.g. Eesti NSV 1965: 271). Still, ignoring topical subjects or remaining apolitical was not an option back then. While discussing archaic genres, folklorists learned to present the “correct” facts, emphasising mainly topics concerned with social inequality under class struggle. Among the new, and favoured, research topics that emerged were the life and work of Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1803–1882), the author of the Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg (Kalev’s Son), heroic legends connected with the latter, and topics related to (emphatically positive) relations between Estonian and Russian na- tions (e.g., Ahven 2007: 162, 175).

THE POSITION OF REGILAUL IN THE FOLKLORISTICS OF THE 1950s

Regilaul has been the most prominent genre in Estonian folklore studies throughout history. Collecting and publishing folklore has been a major task, laden with patriotic sentiments, which was one of the central goals during the nineteenth-century national awakening, joining people from different social strata – rural intellectuals and peasants, townsfolk of peasant origin, and intelligentsia. Jakob Hurt ranked regilaul first in his list of “the antiquities”, the nationwide collection of which he started with his 1888 appeal (Hurt 1888). Also, Estonum Carmina Popularia, the first part of the series on Estonian collective folk memory, Monumenta Estoniae Antiquae, contains Kalevala-metric regilaul. Regilaul preserved its unique status also at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although larger countrywide collecting activities also entailed recording other genres,15 the collecting of regilaul, valued as a “witness to a soon to be forgotten glory of the past”, began to resemble a rescue mission. Regilaul was

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always the first genre to be recorded during fieldwork and continued to take priority among the sound-recorded material (Oras 2008b: 74–86). Changes in the position of regilaul took place in the 1950s. It can be witnessed in the textbooks, which were impetuously compiled and published in multiple continuously edited editions, as it was common at the onset of the Soviet occupation. The first post-war survey of folklore studies by Eduard Laugaste was published in 1946. It contained Soviet rhetoric of class struggle and obligatory chapters on the views of Marxist classics and Soviet authors. Regardless of that, the history of Estonian folklore collection and studies was not “revised” according to the new principles. The next survey, written by folklorists of the ILL and published in 1953, already proceeded from the principles of “revision and revelation”. Folklore collectors of the previous periods were criticised for their preferential collecting of “the antiquities” (Eesti kirjanduse ajalugu 1953: 8). These assessments were turned down in a revised and edited version of the textbook published after Stalin’s death in 1957, but the essence remained the same: the previous folklore research and collecting activities were regarded as tendentious and overly oriented to the past, and consequently, a failed endeavour (Eesti kirjanduse ajalugu 1957: 122–123). In subject overviews of folklore in these textbooks, the first genre to be introduced is folk songs, and among them regilaul is discussed first. There is a noticeable emphasis on songs reflecting social conflicts, especially in the textbook from 1953. This approach largely stems from the extremely subjective “logic” of the historical development of the material, as the chapter leads to a culmination and concludes with revolutionary songs in newer style – a most appreciated genre at this time. Most of the chapter, however, discusses regilaul (see Eesti kirjanduse ajalugu 1953: ch. III; 1957: ch. II). The status of the regilaul genre and the scope of discussion in the textbooks prove the continuing recognition and eminent position of the genre. In the 1957 textbook, the overview of folklore concludes with the sentence: “Folklore is the foundation of our collective Soviet culture.” This is the fundamental reason why regilaul continued to be recognised – it was perceived as a foundation of contemporary (Soviet) folk culture, such as authored poetry and authored music. As it was impossible to deny that folklore was considered as the foundation of national culture also during the independent Republic of Estonia, it was necessary to reassess the former folklore studies.16 It was the era of proliferating negative rhetoric, and terms like “formalism”, “objectivism”, “aestheticism”, “cosmopolitanism”, etc. were used effusively in these reassess- ments. Like the intellectuals who could not remain apolitical (Sirk 2004: 63), folklore had to become political as well and reflect “the class struggle”. The regilaul tradition proposed the topic of social inequality: songs about slaves and

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orphans, also the newer men’s songs in regilaul-metre expressing opposition to the manor, all helped to meet the political demand next to the lack of end- rhymed socio-critical “revolutionary songs” and “Soviet-era folklore”.

THE PUBLICATION OF REGILAUL IN THE 1950s: VANA KANNEL

Since the recording of regilaul was given priority among other genres of folklore, the collections of the Estonian Folklore Archives hold a rich corpus of regilaul from all over Estonia, exceeding 140,000 songs recorded in manuscripts and on audiotapes. The publishing of the regilaul corpus has not been equally suc- cessful. Regilaul was published in anthologies, compiled according to a variety of principles and purposes. In the period under discussion, the compilation of a comprehensive anthology of regilaul was also constantly on the agenda of the folklorists of the ILL (Ahven 2007: 175).17 The article, however, focuses on the circumstances surrounding the edited monumental publication Vana Kannel. The continuation of the publication of the series has been regarded as a follow-up of Jakob Hurt’s lifework and as safeguarding the traditions – and national values – of Estonian folklore studies. While the first volumes were published by Jakob Hurt in 1875–1886, volume XI was published in 2014 (from 105 parishes of Estonia only the material of 13 parishes has been published). The volumes of Vana Kannel were published after longer intervals, and have been accompanied by fierce debates about the principles and research-political scandals. The main publishing principle of Vana Kannel is geographicality and comprehensibility: each volume contains all the regilaul songs, older children’s songs, and Kalevala-metric incantations recorded in a parish (or two parishes). The song texts are edited and presented in a typological sequence. Regardless of the consistent publication principles and attempts at a consensus, each volume of the series is different and depends on the editor’s views (see also Saarlo 2012). Herbert Tampere (1909–1975), one of the organisers of the publication of the Vana Kannel series in the mid-twentieth century,18 mentions in an overview of the publishing history that the preparations for the series were disrupted in 1949 (Tampere 1965: 103). In retrospect one may assume that the main reason for the disruption was probably a change in the priorities in folklore studies, a turn towards the search for “Soviet folklore”. When the State Publishing House turned to Herbert Tampere and the Literary Museum with a proposi- tion to start compiling monumental folklore anthologies in 1954, a year after Stalin’s death, it was also a sign of change in academic politics.

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In spring 1955, a large discussion meeting about publishing regilaul anthologies was held at the University of Tartu with the participation of folklorists from all the institutions and other interest groups concerned (the DF of the SLM, the CELF of the UT, and the DF of the ILL). The working group established at the meeting – which became the editorial board of Vana Kannel – decided upon the main publication principles and the regions whose regilaul anthologies were to be published first. It was decided that the first corpora to be published should come from the areas with the most remarkable singing tradition, which were known as once having had a strong regilaul tradition and from where the greatest number of songs had been collected (e.g. during Jakob Hurt’s folklore collecting campaign). It turned out that additional fieldwork was needed for compiling contemporarily edited publications, to gather additional information about the performers and collectors of regilaul, record the songs to perpetuate their melodies and details of performances, etc. (Tampere 1960: 513–514). The preparations for the continuation of the academic publishing of regilaul thus started with a series of targeted fieldtrips by several institutions. Although the ILL was established in Tartu, in 1952 it was moved to Tal- linn, the capital of the Estonian SSR, together with other institutions under the Academy of Sciences. Thus it seems only natural that the folklorists of the ILL focused their collecting activities on Virumaa region in northern Estonia, and more specifically on Alutaguse region, a regilaul centre in the northeast of Estonia. Ülo Tedre, who participated in fieldwork in the region in the second half of the 1950s, writes in the preface to the Jõhvi and Iisaku volumes of Vana Kannel that the fieldtrips to northeast Estonia – Jõhvi, Iisaku, Lüganuse, and Vaivara parishes – carried out by the researchers of the ILL, took place as a result of the meetings of the Vana Kannel editorial board. The fieldwork was related to the publishing of the regilaul songs of northeast Estonia, and was aimed to sound-record the last living regilaul singers as well as collect information about the former ones (Tedre 1999a: 6; see also Mirov & Tuvi 2009: 81; Eesti NSV 1965: 271). In his overview of the history of collecting regilaul, Tedre (1999b: 99) discusses these expeditions very briefly, and does not touch upon the circumstances and participants of the fieldwork. In the following, folklore fieldwork politics and methods will be studied and the outcomes of the fieldwork series in Alutaguse region will be discussed.

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FOLKLORE EXPEDITIONS IN THE 1950s

In the 1950s, a new form for carrying out fieldwork was introduced in Estonian folklore studies: the grandiosely termed field “expeditions” were, ideally, collecting events with a large number of participants, representing several disciplines and/or institutions, and taking place mainly in rural areas. The participants stayed in a single central base, for example, a school boarding house, community centre, local library, manor house, etc., and made day trips to the surrounding villages on foot, by bike or by car. Fieldwork was carried out using the frontal method; the involving of folklorists with different research interests and rep- resentatives of neighbouring disciplines ensured that the collection covered various genres and themes of traditional culture. The adoption of new recording technology – reel-to-reel tape recorders – and the limited electricity supply in rural regions necessitated the use of cars and buses in fieldwork. This type of fieldwork required thorough preparatory work – getting acquainted with the material previously collected in the area, studying topics that needed additional information, etc. – and was continued by a time-consuming systematisation of the collected material before it was archived (Oras 2008b: 64ff.). Before World War II, fieldwork used to be carried out by one or two folklorists at a time, who were travelling together, and often focused on a specific topic or genre (e.g., regilaul, local legends, etc.). The same fieldwork practices were continued during the collection of “Soviet folklore” in the post-war years. Thus, the manuscript collections of the ILL from 1947 to 1954 are predominantly submitted by single collectors.19 The change in the form of fieldwork was introduced at inter-institutional conferences about organising the collection of materials for research in the humanities and social sciences, in which next to folklorists also researchers of dialects and ethnographers participated. In addition to modernising the research topics (towards Soviet folklore), large-scale joint field expeditions were launched in cooperation with different institutions and disciplines (Oras 2008b: 60–62). In 1948, Richard Viidalepp (1904–1986), senior researcher at the Folklore Section of the ILL, organised the first inter-institutional joint expedition to Kihnu Island and took part in later joint field expeditions in the south of Estonia (Seto region 1948–1949, Helme 1951). Besides folklorists of the SLM and ILL, the field expeditions involved students of philology of the UT, Tallinn State Conservatory,20 the State Art Institute,21 and also sound-recording specialists from Estonian Radio, etc. (see Ahven 2007: 48–49, 65; Tamm 2002: 228ff.) As folklorists grew rather unsatisfied with the joint expedition with a large number of participants and highly diverging interests, in 1952 folklorists at the Literary Museum organised a smaller expedition, under the supervision

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of Herbert Tampere, with all the department’s researchers, and musicians or students of music (Oras 2008b: 61).

FOLKLORISTS’ FIELDWORK IN ALUTAGUSE IN 1955–1960

Folklorists of the FS of the ILL started joint fieldwork only in 1954, with a trip to Hiiumaa Island, and there were only two participants in this trip – Richard Viidalepp, initiator of folklore fieldwork at the ILL, and Ülo Tedre. While the official reports and reviews of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR point out the active collecting work of the FS (Kümme aastat 1956: 168–169),22 the first joint folklorists’ expeditions of the ILL with more than two folklorists participating were carried out in Iisaku and Jõhvi parishes in north-eastern Estonia in July 1955. In addition to the Vana Kannel editorial board’s decisions about publishing the regilaul corpora of certain regions, and the division of tasks between institutions mentioned above, the choice of north-eastern Estonia as the fieldwork destination was also connected with other specific facts. One of the consistently emphasised obligatory topics of the humanities in Soviet Estonia was the relations between Estonians and Russians. Researchers in Estonian studies used opportunities to connect the obligatory topic with the historically nationalistic one – explanations of the ethnogenesis of Estonians in the course of collecting and analysing data from archaeology, ethnography, and dialectology.23 Local (heroic) legends, which had come into focus with the anniversary of the Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg (published by Kreutzwald in 1857), had the same roots as Russian folklore, both in terms of motifs and geography. This is why fieldwork at the time was preferably organised in border areas with mixed ethnic population around Lake Peipus – namely, Alutaguse, Kodavere, and the Seto region (Kümme aastat 1956: 190; Eesti NSV 1965: 271; Tedre 1997: 202–204). The folklorists of the ILL visited north-eastern Estonia in three series: Jõhvi, Iisaku, and Vaivara parishes under the lead of Richard Viidalepp in 1955–1960, Lüganuse and Jõhvi parishes under the lead of Ülo Tedre in the 1960s, and, once again, Lüganuse parish for repeated fieldwork in the late 1970s. This article focuses on the first series of fieldtrips, those led by Richard Viidalepp. This first expedition series resulted in 4,165 pages of manuscript records (also from Russian and poluverniks’24 villages), 47 items (468 pieces) of tape recordings and about a thousand photographs. As was expected – according to researchers’ knowledge about cultural changes in the area – the number of regilaul materials collected was rather small, though by no means non-existent. What the collectors could not anticipate was how difficult it was to find addi-

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tional information about former singers and collectors. In terms of temporal distance, however, this makes sense – in these complicated times, being cau- tious about sharing information about one’s relatives was definitely sensible (see Tedre 1999a: 6). The following relies mainly on the collectors’ fieldwork diaries, since the published material – the collection overview of volume VIII of Vana Kannel (Jõhvi and Iisaku parishes) (Tedre 1999b: 84–100), memoirs of the people concerned (Tedre 1997; Viidalepp 1979), the annual reviews of the ILL (Ahven 2007), etc. – share very little information about these expeditions. At the same time, the rather conscientiously and consistently written fieldwork notes provide a good overview of folklorists’ purposes and methods.

Expedition participants

The main organiser and leader of the fieldtrips, Richard Viidalepp, worked at the Folklore Section of the ILL since it was founded in 1947.25 After the institute had been moved to Tallinn, Viidalepp was appointed the head of the section in 1952. Other participants of the fieldtrips were his younger colleagues, born in the 1920s, who had graduated from the UT after World War II: Ülo Tedre (1928–2015),26 Loreida Raudsep (1922–2004),27 and Helgi Kihno (1915–1993),28 episodically also Veera Pino (1925–2015),29 Ruth Mirov (b. 1928),30 and Alviine Schmuul (b. 1934)31. Participants from other institutions included Vivian Jüris and lecturer Ester Mägi from the Tallinn State Conservatory, also Russian-born authors Jüri Shumakov and Veera Schmidt. Of all these people, Richard Viidalepp was the most experienced in collecting folklore. He had worked at the Estonian Folklore Archives since 1929, been actively involved in developing the network of correspondents for the EFA, and had also supervised the collecting campaign of local legends (Hiiemäe 2005). He was one of the grand collectors of Estonian folklore, who had started collecting already as a student in the 1920s. His main research subject was narration and storytellers, and in the 1950s he focused on the recording and comparative research of heroic legends (see Viidalepp 1961, 1968). Viidalepp’s young fieldwork companions, only starting work at the Folklore Section, were not completely without experience in collecting folklore. As gradu- ates of Estonian philology at the University of Tartu, they had all completed the required practical fieldwork course. Ülo Tedre and Loreida Raudsep had documented the folklore of collective farms, revolutionary workers’ folklore, heroic legends in central Estonia and elsewhere. Still, they had not participated in

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joint fieldtrips with experienced folklorists, and their practical fieldwork course had taken place during the heyday of collecting the so-called Soviet folklore. Vivian Jüris and Ester Mägi had studied at the Tallinn State Conserva- tory, where Herbert Tampere had worked as professor of ethnomusicology in 1946–1951, and so both had been prepared for documenting musical folklore. The size and composition of the fieldwork team changed over the years. The number of participants and the fieldwork period increased until 1957, and then decreased remarkably because of the participants’ changing interests. In addition, focus of the collected material varied depending on fieldwork participants.32 Those participating in the fieldtrips had a very different academic back- ground and fieldwork experience, which had a definite impact on their fieldwork methods and preferences. All this, along with the varying sizes of fieldwork teams and personal relationships, also influenced fieldwork results in general.

Objectives of fieldwork

The point of departure in this article was a remark by Ülo Tedre that the main objective of the fieldwork carried out by the FS of the ILL in north-eastern Es- tonia was recording material from the last regilaul singers and documenting additional information about the singers of previous generations (Tedre 1999a: 6). The area was selected according to the strategic plan of the editorial board of Vana Kannel. Surprisingly, the fieldwork notes from 1955, even those made by Viidalepp, who was the leader of the expedition, do not formulate the objectives of this fieldwork, which would have been expected at the start of such a major under- taking. Only Ülo Tedre, a young and ambitious folklorist at the time, a fresh Candidate of Sciences, named interdisciplinary and interinstitutional fieldwork in a multi-ethnic, mixed-settlement area as one objective, and Viidalepp’s aim to collect heroic legends as another (KKI 20, 315). From Viidalepp’s field notes it is obvious that he had a clear understanding of the folklore and population of the fieldwork area; he also wrote about inquiring and narrating legends about Kalevipoeg, identifying sites connected with the legends, recording the tradition of poluverniks, etc. The diaries of the young colleagues reflected mainly daily events and the aesthetics of natural landscapes. The collection diaries make no mention of regilaul, even though some songs were collected. In 1956, the tone of the diaries suddenly changed. Viidalepp’s diary became more official and reporting in style – and thus directed outwards. Presump- tively, Viidalepp as the head of the FS was reprimanded because of the failed

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organisation of the first fieldtrip, according to the Soviet habitudes, and led the next expedition more assiduously and formally. While in 1955 regilaul was evidently not in the focus of the fieldwork, the situation changed the next year. On the morning of the first fieldwork day, Viidalepp held a lecture about the objectives of fieldwork. First on his list of materials to be collected were (archaic and newer) folk songs, followed by folk tales (KKI 22, 576/9). After the expedition, a few short reviews were published in newspapers,33 in which the collected material was introduced according to the canons of Estonian folkloristics: folk songs, then folk tales, short forms of folklore, rituals, with regilaul as the first among musical folklore. Thus, at least reportedly, musical folklore was the priority of the collecting activities. The involvement of expedition members from the Tallinn State Conserva- tory in 1956 and 1957 indicates that, in fact, a particular focus was placed on musical folklore. Having the students and musicians of the conservatory write down the melodies was a customary practice at the time, since the means for sound-recording music were limited. Among the objectives of the fieldwork series was also the use of new technology – a magnetophon or reel-to-reel tape recorder – to sound-record folklore. That could be one of the reasons why in the second year more attention was dedicated to regilaul. Regardless of the inconveniences that the use of this device posed (described below in more detail), the technical innovation was enthusiastically welcomed. The availability of the recording device and transportation in later years also determined that sound-recording folk tradition became the main objective of the special expeditions, for which the teams became smaller, the organising of fieldwork was more spontaneous, and which lasted for shorter periods of time. The choice of sound-recorded material is especially revealing, indicating the preference of musical folklore and regilaul, which at this time was common to Estonian folkloristic fieldwork practices in general. Among other goals of the expeditions, at least in the early years, was probably the instruction of younger folklorists in fieldwork situations. After all, the team mainly included highly experienced Viidalepp and three rather young and/or inexperienced folklorists – Raudsep, Kihno, and Tedre. This goal was not documented in newspaper articles or in official reports. It becomes evident in the field notes, and predominantly in a negative way. In his first fieldwork diary, Tedre expresses expectations to be tutored by Viidalepp (KKI 20, 318/9). In the course of the fieldtrip, the younger team members, some more, some less, complained about the lack of instruction by Viidalepp. It is likely that Viidalepp’s personality was not conducive to fieldwork with larger teams, as he was used to work independently. So he left the young folklorists to collect

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folklore on their own (KKI 20, 323). Viidalepp, on his part, was worried that the team would fall apart and his colleagues would not learn the importance of collective work; the concern was caused by unspoken conflicts with the self- assured young folklorists (KKI 20, 401/2).

On collecting musical folklore

In spite of the fact that regilaul songs had moved from the active repertoire into a passive one throughout Estonia, with the exception of a few areas, Estonian folklorists were very actively trying to collect regilaul in the 1950s and 1960s. It is evidenced by the expeditions of the DF of the SLM to southern Estonia, south-eastern Estonia, the western islands, Kodavere parish, etc. (see Oras 2008a; 2008b: 64ff.). Although regilaul was formally the most prominent genre in musical folklore, the collectors were, in fact, not similar in their collecting strategies. Because of the frontal fieldwork methods and different interests, some of the collectors did not exactly focus on regilaul. For the young folklorists of the FS, the keywords that mark the musical folklore collected during the expedition series were historically newer, end-rhymed folk songs, handwritten songbooks, and psaltery players. The field notes about collecting musical folklore primarily described the joys and concerns related to finding good singers and instrument players. Skilled singers were sought through questioning other villagers, but in most cases they named singers who knew contemporary songs. Folklorists often experienced the situation where the interviewed singers’ repertoire was not what they were after, e.g. church hymns or authored songs. Also, some singers would be too shy or even unwill- ing to sing to the outsiders. Handwritten notebooks containing folk songs were actively sought after and traced through entire villages. Handwritten songbooks seemed as if an exciting physical artefact, an evidence of something archaic and valuable. The songbooks were not very easy to get hold of – without naming the real reasons, several former songbooks remained inaccessible or proved to have been destroyed. Probably, the owners of the songbooks were concerned about the prohibited content of the songs (anti-Soviet, nationalistic, religious, etc.), causing serious consequences in Stalinist era. The songbooks might have been inaccessible also because Soviet authorities had deported the owners. However, the available songbooks were gladly lent out for copying and, thus, much of the material recorded in writing at the time consisted of copied song texts. As the songbooks contained, for the most part, newer and authorial songs

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that were known all over Estonia (incl. songs broadcast over the media), the leader of the expedition, Viidalepp, was naturally disappointed.34 Active attempts were made to locate instrumentalists and convince them to play, but this was no easy task either. The instruments of those who could play were either no longer suitable for playing or had fallen apart or the instrumentalists were no longer physically capable or willing to play. The diaries speak mainly of psaltery players; other instrumentalists are rarely mentioned. The fieldwork diaries of the first expedition years do not reveal whether this was due to the collectors’ preference – considering the symbolic importance of playing the psaltery in national-romanticist mythology35 and its exoticism in the mid-twentieth century – or the longer-lasting vitality of the local psaltery music tradition. Later fieldwork, indeed, confirms that in addition to the choir singing tradition, the region had a lively psaltery music tradition, which survived in the trend of amateur instrumental groups favoured during the Soviet period. From the folklorists at the FS of the ILL only Richard Viidalepp, regardless of his research interest and collecting preferences, also made notes about musical folklore, as well as ethnographic, linguistic, culture-historical, and other observations. Other members of the expedition team were not guided by such a specific interest focused on more striking and exotic phenomena. The methods and preferences of the young folklorists were probably also affected by their previous experience on the collective farms, which included recording of amateur cultural activities, wall newspapers, etc. For that reason, their attention may have been directed rather towards cultural history and written expression. Thus, the regilaul tradition largely escaped their attention. The diaries and working principles of the musicians Vivian Jüris and Ester Mägi, however, were completely different.36 Their observations, while rather laconic in scope, focused on specialised topics, describing the informants’ knowledge of music history and their musical experiences, qualities (e.g. range of voice), the peculiarities of the performance, repertoire, etc. The documenting of musical folklore was arranged in the manner that the person who notated the music accompanied another folklorist to visit a previously recommended skilled singer or instrumentalist. Therefore, Vivian Jüris wrote down 89 melodies and Ester Mägi 108 melodies, both recorded 12 regilaul songs and various melodies of children’s songs. In 1956, Vivian Jüris was the first to describe in her diary how she consciously guided the informant, who was questioned about calendar rituals, to recall regilaul verses, as a result of which the informant also remembered other songs related to customs (KKI 21, 41). Evidently regilaul had survived in Alutaguse only in the fragments of mumming customs, a few work songs, incantations, and lullabies sung to small children – as the fieldwork revealed at the time.

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In her diary, Jüris also describes the recitative nature of performing regilaul. As she struggled with identifying the intervals, she found it difficult and sometimes impossible to write down the melodies. Ester Mägi was far more experienced in writing notations; she distinguished the older style of singing – the special style of “leelo-singing” – and variation in melodies. It may seem surprising that people with musical education were more efficient in collecting classical folklore genres. As mentioned above, both Jüris and Mägi had studied at the Tallinn State Conservatory at the time when ethnomusicology was taught there by Herbert Tampere, enthusiast of collecting and studying Estonian folk music. Mägi had studied composition under Mart Saar (1882–1963), who was one of the first professional composers to use folk melodies in his musical production (EMBL 2008: 236–238, see also emic.ee). He also inspired Mägi to collect folk tunes and use these in her compositions (EMBL 2007: 515–517; see also emic.ee). In retrospect, it seems that the folklorists who had graduated at the end of the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s initially lacked experience to inquire about regilaul songs or even make notice of them. Documenting the remnants of regilaul, which had receded from active use into people’s memory, requires specific knowledge and skills. The young folklorists acquired those skills only in the course of fieldwork, and perhaps were, at least partly, influenced by the musicians who had been educated by Herbert Tampere and Mart Saar.

Sound-recording

Folklorists in the 1950s enthusiastically greeted the adoption of reel-to-reel tape recorders. This inestimable tool for saving information restructured the conventional arrangement of fieldwork on organisational as well as on inter- personal relationship level. The recorded material gives evidence of the genres folklorists preferred and valued. During Alutaguse fieldtrips, Richard Viidalepp had a leading role also in sound-recording sessions; he was assisted by Helgi Kihno until the end of the fieldtrips series. Beginning with the expedition of 1956, when the reel-to-reel tape recorder was first used in fieldwork, the diary entries discuss at length the sound-recording of songs and tales, the convincing of performers to come to the recording sessions, etc. The recorder was sizable and heavy, far from being easily portable, also electricity was available only in some places (e.g. at the forest department office, the collective farm centre) and not outside office hours. Year by year, sound-recording became the main collecting method in fieldwork. Interviews

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carried out by folklorists served as preparatory work for sound-recording sessions, with an aim to identify the best singers, storytellers, and instrumentalists, and the repertoire worth recording.37 The most challenging problem proved to be having people come to the recording site. Although the majority of the interviewees were of advanced age, old-age pensioners in modern terms, retirement was not an option in these days. All country people who were able to work, regardless of age, were members of collective farms and in summers were very busy with working in the fields; asking them to take time off work on working days was unthinkable. Transpor- tation posed another challenge. During the first years when the tape recorder was used, folklorists had no constant transport available, but their informants lived in villages far from centres. Thus, having them come to a recording session required long negotiations and provoked unexpected incidents. Folklorists were sometimes quite frustrated with singers who after long convincing still did not show up for the recording session. In later years, the team already had a car to transport the performers to the recording sessions more operatively. As was customary at the time, musical folklore – singing and instrumental music – took priority in sound-recording sessions. However, the repertoire of the best storytellers has also been recorded. An example of how regilaul was given preference can be found in Richard Viidalepp’s fieldwork diary notes about the first recording session with Pauliine Kiiver. Kiiver’s active repertoire contained many end-rhymed songs, but folklorists were concerned that the 81-year-old woman would not have stamina to sing for long and started by recording her regilaul singing (KKI 24, 238). During this session, altogether 49 pieces, among them 12 regilaul and children’s songs, were recorded from Kiiver. The share of sound-recordings among the collected material increased year by year. In 1956, the number of pieces recorded was 66, in 1957 also 66; in 1958 recording resulted in the total of 168 songs. The majority of first years’ recordings were musical folklore; later the share of folk tales among the sound-recorded material increased. The amount of regilaul songs was scarce, each year around a dozen, altogether 43 songs. Later on shorter expeditions were dedicated mainly to sound-recording, and often they resulted in no manuscript notes at all. Owing to Viidalepp’s interests, very little musical folklore material was recorded from already known informants or as random recordings.

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The regilaul singers of Alutaguse

The second half of the 1950s was the time when collecting regilaul, at least in retrospect, might have been perceived as a very improbable activity to pursue. The rural population that was facing the consequences of war, guerrilla warfare, deportations, forced collectivisation, and the rural areas draining from people seems a rather unlikely environment where regilaul could have survived. Who were the people singing regilaul in the middle of the twentieth century? What was the role of regilaul in their lives? During the fieldwork of the 1950s, the collectors met 31 women and 4 men38 whose (passive) repertoire also included regilaul. This was a very common situation in the twentieth-century Estonia: regilaul had disappeared from active tradition already long before, the songs emerged from corners of the memory to be recited as verses in descriptions of calendar rituals, sometimes as songs accompanying other rituals or work, or as lullabies that survived in active use for a longer time. Typically, the performers did not often refer to these as songs, but as chanting, or intoning. They used to have no melody and were recited. People were often reluctant to sing regilaul, as it was not valued by the community anymore (see Oras 2008a). Still, contrary to the majority, some more aged informants wished to sing what they called regevirsu, but could no longer remember any. In the following, five women with the largest regilaul repertoire will be introduced; each one of them could be a model of a regilaul-singer of the mid- twentieth century. What was remarkable about these female singers was that they possessed a large song repertoire and had outstanding musical qualities, a wide range of voice, and they sang in tune (as the musicians have said based on the performance of newer folksongs). These women were exceptional as recallers/knowers of this archaic music but by no means reclusive by their living habits. They were recognised in their community as being good singers of modern, i.e. newer end-rhymed folk songs, singers of the new era, and were often generally well versed in traditions and customs. This way they were also characteristic of the regilaul tradition of Alutaguse (and entire Estonia, where it had disappeared in general). Hidden in the musical tradition that conveyed a new and more modern worldview and aesthetics, regilaul was not an independent phenomenon but a (well-hidden and forgotten) part of the folklore of its performers. Vivian Jüris recounts in the diary how she met the 83-year-old Anna Võsu- mets, “the oldest person at the collective farm, and the person with the largest song repertoire”, as she confidently introduced herself. Jüris described the clarity of the singer’s voice and her rhythmic performance; also how Võsumets

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expressed her regret that she could not meet the folklore collectors another time, as she had more songs to remember (KKI 21, 47). In 1957, Ester Mägi was impressed by Pauliine Kirss, whom she visited together with Viidalepp. Kirss performed songs that she had learned from her mother-in-law, and Mägi recognised and noted in her performance the earlier layer of regilaul melodies and the special style of performance, the “old singing style”. From Kirss, the collectors wrote down 10 regilaul texts and 5 melodies, and the songs were also sound-recorded. Unfortunately, Kirss’ songs were not published in Vana Kannel, and so her name appears only on manuscript pages. Loviisa Mahmastol from Sootaga village had a highly interesting personality. She was a poluvernik by origin, a well-known folk healer, and a fine singer and storyteller. Collectors recorded folk tales, end-rhymed songs, and finally also spells from her. Even though Mägi claimed that Mahmastol did not know any regilaul tunes, several regilaul-metric spells and lullabies have been written down and recorded from her (KKI, RLH 58: 22). The collectors visited Mahmastol during several fieldtrips, even in the 1960s. In 1958, Viidalepp and Kihno note that recording the spells from Mahmastol was very challenging – the folk healer was reluctant to reveal them (KKI 24, 226/8). For unknown reasons, the written spells and sound-recordings mentioned in the fieldwork diaries have not been preserved.39 1957 marked the beginning of Viidalepp’s long-term cooperation with Ella Asnaurian (née Hallikas), from whom 9 songs and 5 melodies were written down and some other material was sound-recorded. First the collectors visited her as a descendant of Mari Krasmann, also known as Viru Maie (KKI 24, 125/6, 131, 134), who was a well-known singer in the area. The collectors’ enquiries concerning her reveal the intent to prepare the Vana Kannel volume. Asnaurian, who was first interviewed as a good singer, later proved to be one of the most valuable storytellers in the region (cf. Kõiva 2013: 188–189). Quite late in the fieldtrip series, in 1958, Richard Viidalepp met Pauliine Kiiver (aka Pouliine/Liine Kiiver, Sildoja’s mama), who, unlike many of her contemporaries, gladly agreed to being interviewed and recorded. She felt responsibility for having the tradition still living in her memories to be recorded. During the long recording sessions, she showed admirable cooperative skills and stamina. This meeting also developed into a years-long cooperation. Viidalepp visited Pauliine Kiiver in her home on many occasions and sound-recorded her songs and tales. Many times, Pauliine Kiiver also sent her written songs and memoirs to Viidalepp at the ILL. Such singers of the new era – i.e. those who know regilaul but whose repertoire consists mainly of newer folk songs – are disregarded in the lists of regilaul

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singers. They disaccord with the image of the “authentic” regilaul singers and probably therefore there is no information about them in the overview of singers of volume VIII of Vana Kannel.

SONGS FROM THE 1950s IN THE REGILAUL CORPUS OF ALUTAGUSE REGION

The most astonishing and incomprehensible aspect of the result of the expedition series is that so much of written – and even more surprisingly – sound-recorded regilaul material was left out from the published regilaul corpus of Alutaguse region, i.e. from volume VIII of Vana Kannel. From 165 recorded songs (regilaul and older type of children’s songs) only 67 were published, whereas 98 were left unpublished. Of the 24 regilaul melodies notated by Vivian Jüris and Ester Mägi, only 7 were published, in addition to these some song texts written down by a folklorist in their fieldwork team. Of the 43 sound-recorded songs, only 20 transcriptions were published. The song texts, of course, were largely fragmented variants of previously documented song types. However, the exclusion of regilaul tunes, especially the older melodies collected by Ester Mägi, and sound-recorded songs, is regretful. The compilation principles of Vana Kannel were not set forth as a random or emotional choice;40 there are no explicable reasons why some of the songs remained unpublished.41 A logical conclusion here is that the reason was simple human inconsistency. As Ülo Tedre has repeatedly pointed out, the biggest problem of the folklorists at the FS of the ILL was the fact that the research materials and the researchers were located in different cities (Tedre 1997: 203). This was also the case with the regilaul corpus of Alutaguse: the majority of song texts, those collected before World War II, were held in the collections of the Literary Museum in Tartu, but the more recent material was held in the ILL collections in Tallinn. The compilers of Vana Kannel – Hilja Kokamägi, Ülo Tedre, and Edna Tuvi – worked in both cities, and even the manuscript was edited both in Tallinn and Tartu. So, it could happen that some songs were not copied from the original manuscripts and recordings, and thus remained unpublished. Would all the above give any reason to raise the issue of violation of the compilation principles of the Vana Kannel series? This could be seen as split- ting hairs, especially since the unpublished songs definitely do not change the contents of the Alutaguse regilaul corpus, or the general picture of the regilaul tradition of Jõhvi and Iisaku parishes. It is not important why these songs were left unpublished; there is no reason to search for academic intrigues.

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However, the more trivial the reason might be, the more symbolic is the result. At present, it seems that, as the members of the fieldwork teams did not write about the collecting circumstances, they also failed to think that what they recorded was particularly noteworthy or valuable. The fieldwork series developed the image of worthlessness and insignificance; the collected material was underused and forgotten. That is why it might be said that the fieldwork in Alutaguse in the second half of the 1950s remained unfinished and failed. While one of the objectives of the field expeditions to north-eastern Estonia may have been gathering additional information to prepare the publishing of Vana Kannel, the folklorists of the ILL did not start compiling the volumes in the 1950s. The volumes of Vana Kannel containing the songs of north-eastern Estonia were published only as a result of the long years of work of retired folklorists – the songs of Jõhvi and Iisaku (vol. VIII) in 1999, and Lüganuse songs (vol. IX) in 2009 (Kokamägi & Tedre & Tuvi 1999, and Mirov & Tuvi 2009, respectively). In 2015, Ruth Mirov and Kanni Labi started preparatory work for publishing the regilaul corpus of Vaivara and Narva. The last volume will finish the publication of the regilaul corpus of Alutaguse region. There is a kind of irony in the fact that relatively unsuccessful endeavour of finishing the corpus in the 1950s ends with great success – the compilation of all Vana Kannel volumes of Alutaguse regilaul.

CONCLUSIONS

In the second half of the 1950s, regilaul won back its former status of the prime genre, acquired already during the national movement. Deprived of the position at the peak of Sovietisation in favour of the so-called Soviet folklore, the prominence was at least formally regained as evidenced in the overviews of literary history and the textbooks. Publishing regilaul, which was considered a pillar of national culture and part of literary classics, in the edited series of Vana Kannel was unquestion- ably seen as a responsibility, but the opportunity to publish came only after the end of the Stalinist period. Regardless of the published overviews of folklore and fieldwork reports shared with the general public, regilaul was not in the collecting focus of all folklorists. The fieldtrips to north-eastern Estonia in the 1950s focused on heroic and local legends, owing to the personal research interests of the leader of the fieldwork, Richard Viidalepp. The Alutaguse regilaul tradition had receded into such a passive state that extracting it from the informants’ memory would have required highly expe-

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rienced folklore collectors. In the 1950s, the regilaul tradition could not be recorded in any other way than as recollections of a tradition. The songs that survived longer were those related to customs, such as Martinmas songs and work songs, also lullabies which were also in practical use, and some wedding songs. In retrospect, it may be said that the young folklorists at the Folklore Sec- tion of the ILL were not experienced enough for collecting regilaul, as they had received their instruction during the peak of collecting “Soviet folklore”. For them, searching for good singers, representing the historically newer singing tradition, was a captivating activity, and the hunt for instrument players and songbooks, which were viewed as genuine artefacts, must have been particularly exciting. All this is evidenced by the enthusiastic and adventurous style of the young folklorists’ fieldwork diaries. This hunting – and fun – was definitely more exciting than systematic questioning about the tradition, which may have resulted in finding traces ofregilaul even at this time. The students and musicians of the Tallinn State Conservatory, who took part in the field expeditions, were more experienced in ethnomusicology and, in a way, were more directly acquainted with the collecting methods of the Estonian Folklore Archives before World War II. A regretful consequence of the thoughtless and disorganised documentation of regilaul was the fact that the recorded material was neither appreciated nor remembered, and therefore excluded from the published regilaul corpus. Be- cause of this, many unique regilaul melodies were left unpublished and singers of the 1950s underrated.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was supported by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (IUT 22-4, “Folklore in the Process of Cultural Communication: Ideologies and Communities”), and by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies).

notes

1 Today the Institute of the Estonian Language.

2 Estonia gained independence on 24 February 1918, during the turmoil at the end of World War I and lost it again during World War II.

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3 Established in 1927 as a sub-institution of the Estonian National Museum (ENM).

4 Established in 1919.

5 Today the Estonian Literary Museum.

6 On the establishment of institutions under the Academy of Sciences of the ESSR in the post-war period, see Ahven 2007: 23ff.; Tedre 1997: 201ff.

7 Docent in folklore studies at the Chair of Literature and Folklore at the UT at this time.

8 Today the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore.

9 A protocol of the meeting for the coordination of folklore-related activities of the ILL of the AS, the CELF at the UT and the SLM dated 6 April 1955, and the meeting discussing the issues related to collecting folklore dated 11 April 1955, with the ILL, the DF of the SLM, and the Chair of the UT participating (EKM, F 24, n 1, s 196).

10 In Estonia, the repressions peaked after the 8th Plenum of the Central Committee of the Estonian Communist (Bolshevist) Party in March 1950, when Estonian party members, repatriated from Russia, ascended to power.

11 On the situation in science, literature, and music during this period see Laas 2005, Olesk 2008, and Lippus 2008.

12 On Soviet folklore see, e.g., Kogumistöö 1948; Eesti kirjanduse ajalugu 1953: 8–9, 18–22, 55–62; for an overview of the activities at the time see Ahven 2007: 64ff.

13 E.g. from Hilda Nõu in 1949 (RKM II 32).

14 E.g. in Märjamaa municipality (KKI 12; EKRK I, 1 & 2).

15 The aim of the campaign for collecting folk tunes, organised in 1904–1916 under the supervision of the Estonian Students’ Society and led by Oskar Kallas, was to record various types of folk music, and the most popular genre recorded was regilaul (see Kuutma 2005). Also, during the campaign for sound-recording folk music in 1936–1938, most of the material came from instrumentalists and regilaul singers. Other collecting activities in the first half of the twentieth century resulted in recording different types of children’s lore in the 1920s–1930s, local lore, etc. (see Tamm 2002; Seljamaa 2005).

16 This conflict led to a rhetorical culmination in reviews about the folklore overview published in 1953, and in the media response by the editor of the overview, Endel Sõgel (1954). See also the editorial office’s summary of the discussion (Toimetuselt 1954).

17 The commented anthology of Estonian regilaul was published in 1969–1974, edited by Ülo Tedre.

18 Tampere compiled volumes III and IV of Vana Kannel: old folk songs from Kuusalu parish (1938) and Karksi parish (1941). He also started compiling the fifth volume about regilaul from Mustjala parish. After Tampere’s death, the publishing of the manuscript was organised by Ottilie Kõiva and Erna Tampere (1985). See also Kalkun 2005.

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19 For example, one of the most productive collectors at the time, Udo Mägi (1917–1973), then a post-graduate student at the ILL, made fieldtrips alone in Kodavere and Muhu parishes in 1947 (KKI 1, KKI 9).

20 Today the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.

21 Today the Estonian Academy of Arts.

22 Viidalepp observes in his fieldwork diary (KKI 27, 117) that one of the reasons for the small scope of fieldwork was the lack of staff but also the institute administration’s general opposition to fieldwork. This opposition may have been caused by the politi- cally complicated times, economic difficulties after the institute had moved (1952) as well as personal conflicts; the precise reasons are difficult to determine in retrospect.

23 E.g. the comprehensive works “On the Ethnic History of Estonians” (Moora 1956) and “On the Ethnic History of Lake Peipus Region” (Moora 1964).

24 Poluverniks, or half-believers, were the descendants of Votians and Russians, who had settled in the Alutaguse region in several waves throughout the 2nd millennium AD, had adopted Lutheranism (instead of Russian Orthodox Christianity) and had assimilated among Estonians by the beginning of the twentieth century.

25 This information about the staff of the FS of the ILL was obtained from respective chapters in Ahven 2007.

26 Ülo Tedre joined the Folklore Section as technician in 1949, and completed his postgraduate studies at the ILL in 1954. Right before the beginning of the fieldwork in Alutaguse, on 23 June 1955, Tedre defended his candidate’s dissertation on the historically newer Estonian song style – the end-rhymed folk song (see Tedre 2003).

27 Loreida Raudsep was assigned by the Communist Party to the position of junior researcher at the FS of the ILL after she graduated from the University of Tartu in 1952.

28 Helgi Kihno started at the ILL as a technician in 1953.

29 Researcher at the FS since 1956.

30 Assistant at the FS since 1957.

31 Technician at the FS since 1959.

32 Viidalepp, Kihno, Raudsep, and Tedre took part in the first fieldtrip in Iisaku on 12–24 July 1955. On the second fieldtrip, based in Tudulinna, on 10–23 July 1956, they were joined by Jüris who recorded musical folklore. On the third fieldtrip, on 28 June–10 July 1957, with a base in Kuremäe, Viidalepp, Raudsep and Kihno were joined by Veera Pino, Ester Mägi (musical folklore) and Jüri Shumakov (Russian folklore). During the fourth trip in Illuka, on 17–29 June 1958, Viidalepp and Kihno were accompanied by Veera Schmidt (Russian folklore). Later fieldtrips lasted only a couple of days and had only two or three participants.

33 E.g. in Oktoobri Tee, the local paper in Mustvee, eastern Estonia, on 28 July and 8 September; in newspaper Õhtuleht on 3 July and 7 September; in newspaper Sirp ja Vasar on 28 September.

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34 E.g. KKI 20, 406 (Richard Viidalepp in 1955).

35 The national epic Kalevipoeg opens with the verse: Laena mulle kannelt, Vanemuine... (‘Lend to me your lyre, Vanemuine...’). The divine image of an old man playing a lyre, or more precisely, psaltery, was borrowed for Estonian national-romanticist (pseudo) mythology from Finnish mythology (see Põldvee 2013).

36 KKI 21, 37/51 (Vivian Jüris in 1956), and KKI 25, 418/32 (Ester Mägi in 1957).

37 Because of the limited amount of recording tape as well as limited time, single folklore pieces rather than entire interviews were sound-recorded.

38 Men’s regilaul repertoire included only a couple of pieces.

39 A variant of a snake spell published in Vana Kannel is from the Archives of Estonian Dialects (see Kokamägi & Tedre & Tuvi 1999: 1058, no. 2348).

40 As previously said, the main composition principle of Vana Kannel is that all regilaul songs, including fragmentary variants and unidentified fragments from a given historical parish would be published. However, the editor of each volume is free to make decisions about the suitability of the genres and types of songs to be included. Also, decisions regarding whether to consider the recorded text variants as duplicates or not, and/or publish them were also left to the editors-compilers.

41 No unpublished song is a single variant of its particular type, so deliberately leaving out some song types (because of their literary origin, overly recent style, etc.) cannot be the reason for exclusion. None of the comments on song types or prefaces to the volume mention any essential or formal (e.g. being considered a duplicate) reasons why some songs were left unpublished.

ARcHIVAL SOURCES

EKM – archive of the Estonian Literary Museum EFAM – materials on the history of Estonian folkloristics, Estonian Folklore Archives, Estonian Literary Museum KKI – manuscripts of the Folklore Sector of the Institute of Language and Literature, Estonian Folklore Archives, Estonian Literary Museum KKI, RLH – sound-recordings of the Folklore Sector of the Institute of Language and Literature, Estonian Folklore Archives, Estonian Literary Museum

REFERENCES

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Liina Saarlo is researcher at the Estonian Folklore Archives of the Estonian Literary Museum, Estonia. [email protected]